


One Thought

by Josselin



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prince Damianos & Slave Laurent, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:04:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3502691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer,” Laurent said to himself. “He killed my brother, and I am going to take revenge.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WIP warning! Thanks in advance to those who decide to read along and encourage while I write. Thanks so much to Tresa for very able plot assistance!

There was a phrase in the Akielon poem called Arsaces’s Lover that described the notion of holding a thought tight in one’s grasp for strength. The poem compared doing this to how a man might cradle the ember of a fire for warmth in the dark of night.

The reference was in one of the love songs, not the battle epics that the king and the prince preferred, so Laurent and the other palace slaves in training didn’t study or rehearse Arsaces’s Lover with the same frequency that they did The Fall of Inachtos or Hypenor.

But Arsaces’s Lover was still part of the palace repertoire, so the training master Tarchon occasionally asked to hear its recitation, and when Laurent performed it, he thought to himself, “Yes.” For there was a thought he held in his grasp as he clung to his birth and his memories of his life before Marlas.

His thought was repeated in Veretian, for when he had first thought it that was the only language that Laurent knew. He had thought it when he had first been tied and tossed into the dark hold of the ship, and he thought it now when he reclined on a silken pallet to sleep in the evening. He repeated it when he awoke in the morning. He reminded himself when he bit his tongue rather than react to something foolish that Tarchon had said, and he consoled himself with it as he knelt and lowered his eyes demurely. It drove him when he questioned why he cared about the Akielon prince’s lion pin.

“I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer,” Laurent said to himself. “He killed my brother, and I am going to take revenge.”

***

Adrastus, the slave master, decided that Laurent was to be presented to Damen on the day of the Water Festival. The weather in the days leading up to the festival was unseasonably cool, so the celebration had been moved from outside in the courtyard to the main hall.

The morning of the Water Festival, Tarchon delivered a last lecture to Laurent. Laurent kept his eyes focused on a line in between the marble tiles of the floor, and made small noises of assent when Tarchon paused. Tarchon was first among the slave trainers, and his lecture covered topics as wide ranging as the prince’s favorite fruit (peaches), the colors that would best flatter Laurent’s skin tones in the prince’s bed (dark blue), how Laurent must be certain to hide the disfiguring scar on his thigh from the prince’s gaze so that Damianos-exalted would not be disgusted, and that Laurent must always be attentive to the prince’s every need.

“Beware of the sin of pride, child,” Tarchon concluded. “You can be proud of your humility as easily as of anything else, and that is not true submissiveness.”

Adrastus entered as Tarchon had wrapped up his lecture and his inspection of Laurent’s makeup. 

The palace slave master performed his own inspection, gesturing for Laurent to turn his face from one side to another.

“Are you certain he’s ready?” said Adrastus, looking over Laurent’s clothing and the lion pin fastening his tunic at the shoulder.

“He is first in all of his studies,” said Tarchon. “He has all of the knowledge of the training gardens.”

Adrastus made a skeptical noise. “Sometimes I think it’d do the flowers in the training gardens more good if they were turned loose in the training ring with the new recruits. Toughen them up.”

“This one is not as delicate as his features might suggest,” said Tarchon.

“The prince is a fighter,” said Adrastus. He addressed his next question to Laurent directly. “Are you ready to serve his highness?”

“With pleasure, master,” Laurent murmured, and that was seemingly the end of the discussion. 

Laurent was paid about as much attention during the remainder of the preparations for the festival as the pig carcass which was to be roasted and served in the middle of the table, which was to say that occasionally someone looked over to ensure that he was still present, and that the figurative apple had not fallen out of his mouth.

The people and the bustle of the palace outside of the slave training gardens were new to Laurent. Adrastus’s dismissive comment about the flowers of the training garden had some accuracy, Laurent thought, for the rest of the palace had an urgency and an energy that was not present in the gardens, where the slaves relaxed in the sunlight and trained under Tarchon’s watchful eye.

Laurent was settled in a preparation alcove between the kitchens and the main hall. The stone wall of the hallway had a small space carved into it wide enough for a bench. The walls were recently washed of the soot from the kitchen and the stone seat was cool against Laurent’s legs. The servants who rushed around with meal preparations didn’t smile and cast their eyes demurely to the side as they passed one another in the manner the slaves did in the garden. 

The training gardens were secluded, because a slave’s first presentation should be to the royal family, and so Laurent did not recognize the others in the palace, though he had lived a five minute walk from them the last four years of his life.

Shortly before he was to be presented to the prince, Laurent saw a face that he did recognize.

Kallias seemed to be looking for him, and when he found Laurent in the preparations room he wore a smirk that distorted his features.

“I should mess your makeup,” said Kallias. “Press my lips to your cheek and show everyone that you’re not as untouched as you like to claim. You think they’ll still present you for a First Night then?” Kallias gestured toward Laurent’s lion-headed pin. 

Kallias had left the training gardens for his own First Night a year before, but the years prior he and Laurent were long acquainted as rivals for the attention of the training masters. 

Early in their training, before Laurent learned to control his face and his emotions, Kallias had liked to needle him. Anything that Kallias could latch on to was fair game for his harassment, whether it was Laurent's scar, a disfigurement that really should have meant he was never accepted to the gardens in the first place, or Laurent's Veretian accent, which Kallias liked to mock in his own smooth tenor.

Kallias’s greatest weapon was from when Laurent had been too green to realize how it was a mistake to speak freely in front of the other trainees. Laurent had been trying to be kind. It had been one of Erasmus’s first days in the garden, and Erasmus had struggled to recite one of the battle odes in front of the master. Then he had heard a rumor about the prince striking down another man in battle with a single blow, and Erasmus had been in tears on his pallet. Erasmus cried beautifully, but he had had his face pressed into the pallet and his light brown curls had been in disarray. 

Kallias and Laurent were trying to comfort him, Kallias with a tentative arm on his shoulder and Laurent with offers to help Erasmus practice the ode, so that he would remember the words and not embarrass himself in front of the master again.

“I will never be able to please the prince,” said Erasmus. “How could one such as myself ever be pleasing to a man who could strike another down with a single blow?”

“You’re beautiful,” Kallias assured the younger boy. “Of course the prince will favor you.”

Laurent, who was well aware that Erasmus’s fair looks were his closest competition for the lion-headed pin, was not quite able to echo Kallias’s sentiments. Perhaps it was his inability to spout some sort of nonsense about Erasmus’s features that led to his mistake.

“He will not be a prince who strikes down other men in the bedroom,” said Laurent. “He will just be a man. A man is not so frightening.”

It was by no means a confession. But perhaps there was something overly genuine or too revealing in Laurent’s voice as he said it, for Kallias raised his head sharply to look at Laurent, rather than down at the tearful Erasmus.

“You’ve been touched before.” Kallias had a dawning sense of conviction in his voice.

Laurent had rethought the moment hundreds of times afterward. He ought to have laughed, or rolled his eyes, or made no reaction and helped Erasmus to dry his tears with the corner of a sheet. But that was not what he had done.

“No,” Laurent had said, too quickly. His voice broke as he spoke. 

Erasmus seemed to have been startled from his own troubles, and was now looking at Laurent with wide horrified eyes, as though Laurent’s lack of virginity might somehow be contagious.

“You have,” said Kallias. He sounded almost gleeful about the realization. “Who was it?”

“I haven’t,” Laurent lied.

Erasmus looked on the verge of tears again. “You’ll be sent away.”

“Nothing happened,” said Laurent. HIs voice cracked again. “I’m not going to be sent away,” he said more firmly.

Laurent might have been sent away, because all it took in the gardens was a whisper of infidelity, and Kallias was not the type to hold his tongue.

But Laurent had had a purpose in the training gardens, and he couldn’t serve it if he was sent away from Ios before he managed to avenge Auguste. Instead, he had cornered Kallias later that evening, when the two of them could be alone. They spoke in low tones in a corner of the garden. Laurent remembered that the air had been warm and carried a hum of insects.

“Are you trying to bribe me?” said Kallias. “What do you think you could possibly have that would please me better than seeing you sent away from here with your tail between your legs?”

“You and Erasmus are very close,” said Laurent.

“Erasmus has never even had an inappropriate thought pass through his head,” said Kallias. “Your threats need work.”

“You are how far ahead of him in training?” said Laurent. “Two years? Three?”

Kallias narrowed his eyes. “What’s your point?”

“What do you think might happen to him, in two years time?” said Laurent. “With no talent of his own for deception and no one to look out for him?” Iphegin had recently fallen down the marble steps, Laurent cast his gaze that direction as a message. The blood had been cleaned off of the white marble, but both of them could remember how it had looked. 

Kallias bit his lip. “Fine,” he said, and a thrill had passed through Laurent. 

It had been his first winning gambit, and he had gone to sleep that evening with a half smile on his face thinking of it, as he told himself, “I will kill Damianos the Prince Killer.”

In the alcove off the kitchen, Kallias must have been remembering the same moment. “You can’t really protect Erasmus from Damianos-exalted’s bedroom, can you?” Kallias said.

“If you speak now, it will only raise questions about why you said nothing earlier,” said Laurent. He stood, because he and Kallias were of a height.

Kallias took a step forward, still smirking. Laurent looked him straight in the eye. “Princes do not always inherit,” Kallias said. “Enjoy your pin while you have it.” Kallias licked his own lips lasciviously. “What do you think will be his tastes tonight? Will he want you to use your mouth? Or will he tie your hands?”

The slave master Adrastus emerged in front of the alcove. “Go dress for the dance,” he said to Kallias, sparing him hardly a glance, and performing yet another inspection of Laurent. “It is time.”


	2. Chapter 2

As a slave, to catch the reaction that someone else had to your appearance involved careful darting glances up through one’s eyelashes, so that the look could be flirtatious and demure without offending one’s master by being too brash. But during Laurent’s introduction in the hall, he did not even need to raise his gaze, because when the prince raised his veil to see him for the first time, his features caused an audible murmur of interest from the rest of the assembled court.

Fair features were rare this far south in Akielos. There were several blonds in the training garden, because of the prince’s taste, but they tended to be golden and tan, their hair the color of honey and not winter butter. 

Laurent kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He could see the prince’s sandals, and glimpses of his sword-callused hands as he lifted the veil away from Laurent’s face, and he could sense Adrastus preening next to him, as though Laurent were his own achievement.

The buzz of reaction to Laurent’s looks settled to quiet as the court waited for the prince’s reaction.

“Is your majesty satisfied?” said Adrastus, with a tone of pride that Tarchon would have rebuked him for in the gardens.

There was a long period of silence. Laurent reminded himself that the prince had no reason to turn him away. _I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer,_ he said silently to himself.

Damen reached out to tip Laurent’s chin up, and Laurent was able to look the prince in the face for the first time in four years. Laurent’s last view of the Akielon prince was burned indelibly into his memory. He would never forget the barbarian standing over Auguste’s body on the field. 

This was the same man, though his appearance was different. At Marlas, he had worn strips of leather armor that seemed to only accentuate the bare skin that remained visible, and he’d been dirtied by a day of fighting, and blooded by the blow that Auguste had landed through his shoulder. For festival in his own home, he wore an embroidered tunic.

The prince’s hair was longer now, and curled around his face. His features were the same. His eyes had the same focus as they took in Laurent now as they had during his duel with Auguste, and his mouth had the same determination. 

Their eyes met. Damen’s eyes were large and deep; he had ridiculously long eyelashes. Laurent held his gaze as long as Tarchon would have permitted, then a moment longer, and then dropped his own eyes down toward the floor. The prince was right in front of him, so he saw the prince’s tunic instead. Underneath his tunic he must have a scar from where Auguste ran him through, Laurent thought, staring at Damen’s shoulder. _I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer._

A slave’s First Night presentation traditionally involved a performance of the slave’s strongest skill. Laurent was proficient at all of the skills they trained on in the gardens. He had memorized all of the epics and more of the poetry than anyone besides the ancient wizened bard who visited the gardens once a season for training. He had almost shed his Veretian accent, and Tarchon insisted that the remaining lilt that distinguished his speech was appealing and exotic. Exotic or not, Adrastus hadn't chosen to put his accent on display.

Recitation was not Laurent’s only skill. Laurent was a fine dancer. He was flexible, quick, and had a precise control over his own limbs that allowed him to master all of the dances, though he didn't have the inherent grace or musicality of a dancer like Erasmus. He was good at the kithara and he was skilled at the various forms of massage that were taught. 

Despite his diligence in his studies, Adrastus had decided that the most remarkable thing to present about Laurent was his looks. Laurent’s features were accentuated by carefully applied makeup, cream to heighten the tone of his skin, rouge to brighten his cheeks and lips, careful kohl lines around his eyes. Adrastus had picked the paints with the evening torchlight of the hall in mind. There were flecks of gold in the dust spread on his eyelids, which was supposed to sparkle in the firelight.

Damen turned his attention from Laurent toward the slave master. "Yes," he said. "I'm pleased." 

Adrastus smiled.

The rest of the festival seemed to pass in a blur for Laurent. He was seated next to the prince for the meal. The Akielon nobles ate on reclined benches -- it was better for the digestion, Laurent had been told during training. Their slaves held plates of food and fed their masters carefully as the nobles conversed and enjoyed the music. Laurent could feel Damen's eyes heavy on him as he sat folded on the floor next to Damen's bench and tried to work unobtrusively. Laurent had heard horror stories of slaves who had embarrassed themselves by dropping plates of food on their masters, or spilling a goblet on the night of their presentation. He was too close to his goal of being alone with the prince now to let a moment of clumsiness interrupt. He held carefully to the plate and watched closely for the cues of when Damen wished to eat, or to be passed his goblet again.

"Are you hungry?" said Damen, addressing Laurent in a lower voice than he used when he spoke to the other courtiers.

Laurent was too nervous to be hungry. "If it pleases my master," he said, just loudly enough to carry to Damen’s ears without being overheard. It was a ridiculous phrase that meant nothing but had the advantage of being a reasonable response to almost any inquiry made of a slave. _I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer._

"You can have some of the food," Damen said.

This was the type of thing that Eramsus liked to speculate about. Would their masters be kind? Would they give generous gifts? Did Laurent think they might receive gifts of gold or jewels? Would their masters pay attention to their slaves' pleasure? Would they be allowed to converse with other slaves when they were not needed? Would their masters allow them to touch themselves--so long as they were still available when serving, of course? Would their masters offer them a sip of wine at meals?

It was speculation that Laurent had had little interest in. He was not training to earn the small pleasures of being a favorite. He was training because he had one purpose left in his life, and because private access to the Akielon prince was one of the obvious benefits of wearing the lion-headed pin. He wasn't concerned that his nourishment might depend on his master remembering to offer him a bite of meat at meals, because he didn't plan to sit next to a master for more than a few hours on this particular day. 

_By this time tomorrow,_ Laurent thought, _I'll either be away from here or tossed into prison._ In either case, he had no intentions of depending on the favors of Damianos-exalted any longer.

But he needed Damen to take him somewhere private. So he canted his head slightly to the side, said, "Thank you, master," and fed himself a bite of the same food off of Damen's plate. 

Damen gestured toward the plate again, so Laurent held out the food to his lips, and he could feel Damen's tongue swipe across his fingers. It reminded him suddenly of his childhood, and how Auguste had taken him to the stables and let him spoil the horses by feeding them carrots. Laurent pushed the memory away violently and focused on the man in front of him. The prince ate with less precision than Laurent had taken his own bite, and some of the sauce from the meat dripped down Laurent’s thumb. He wiped his hand on a napkin.

A festival meal might last for several hours, though it was understandable that a man presented with a new slave might be eager to retire. Damen did not linger late in to the evening in the main hall. He drank a single goblet of wine with his food, conversed warmly with his illegitimate half brother Kastor on the subject of the storm damage to the olive groves, and then took Laurent by the hand, rose, helped Laurent up, and excused himself from the meal amidst knowing smiles, pulling Laurent gently along behind him. 

The prince was accustomed to service, so he should have known about Laurent's duties when they retired to the bedroom. Laurent was to tend to the prince's clothing, help him to wash his face and his hands, turn down the bedding, and retreat silently to the privy to prepare himself for the evening without the prince noticing. 

Damen seemed interested in none of that when they were alone together. He still had hold of Laurent's right hand. His hand was larger than Laurent's own, and his fingers were warm. _I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer,_ Laurent told himself, letting his lowered gaze focus on where their hands met. The prince's skin was darker than his own. Damen wore a ceremonial jeweled dagger on his belt; Laurent wouldn’t let his eyes linger on it for more than a moment, but he felt acutely aware that it was there. He was going to help the prince undress; there would be plenty of opportunity to tuck the knife aside.

"You are very lovely," said Damen. 

It was the duty of a slave to attend to his tasks without ever letting it seem that he was neglecting his master in order to attend to his tasks, yet Laurent wasn't certain how to do this when Damen seemed completely content to just stand in the middle of his own chambers and stare at his new acquisition. 

"You flatter me," Laurent said quietly. 

"Would you--" Damen frowned. Laurent wished the prince would release his hand. "I would like to see you without the paint," said Damen. 

Laurent's eyes widened slightly. 

"Is that all right?" said Damen. 

"Of course," said Laurent, surprised both by the request, which had not been one Tarchon or Adrastus had told him to anticipate, and by the prince asking him if it were all right. What did a prince need to ask a slave? If the prince wished to see him without paint on his face, it was the same as if he had wished his table to have a different color lacquer. The table would not be consulted about its feelings on the matter. 


	3. Chapter 3

A copper basin sat on a table tucked in a corner of the room. Laurent drew his hand out of Damen's grasp and walked across the room. He poured water from the pitcher into the basin. It made a musical noise as it circled the bottom of the bowl, and he could see a watery reflection of himself in the metal and the liquid. There were towels on a shelf underneath the basin. Laurent dipped one of the towels in the water and raised it to his face. 

The prince was watching him closely, and Laurent fought an urge to turn away, as though wiping paint off his face were shameful or somehow private. He had thought about what might happen this night. He had prepared himself mentally, braced himself for things far more intimate than taking a washcloth to his face, and yet he found himself wanting to hesitate. He pushed past the impulse, and removed the makeup. 

The gold-flecked paint wiped off of his eyelids easily, leaving streaks of gold on the towel. There was a pink streak next to the gold from the rouge on his cheeks. The kohl was more stubborn, and Laurent dipped a corner of the towel in the basin again, and raised it again to his eyes, rubbing the paint off. 

When he was finished he set the towel on the table next to the basin. The prince nodded, as though this pleased him. 

Damen reached for Laurent's hand again. Laurent again found himself wanting to hesitate, and he kept himself from showing any reaction. _I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer._ He let Damen take hold of his hand again. Damen pulled him closer to the oil lamp that lit the room. Damen tipped his chin up with same gesture he had used when Adrastus had first presented Laurent. 

"I like that better," said Damen, and his voice carried the warmth of his pleasure within it. If he were Erasmus, Laurent thought to himself, he would be wilting and falling in to Damen's arms just from the sheer joy of having pleased him. Laurent canted his head to the side instead, as though he were overwhelmed by the prince's gaze. His eyes caught again on the dagger Damen wore at his belt. 

"Unless the paint pleased you?" said Damen, and he sounded genuinely interested in Laurent's opinion. 

"Whatever pleases you," said Laurent automatically. 

"Sometimes I think Adrastus is so caught up with his artwork that he forgets the beauty underneath," said Damen. His smile invited Laurent to return it, but it was not a slave's place to criticize the slave master, even if invited to do so by his master. 

"It makes no difference to me," said Laurent honestly. 

"No paint, then," said Damen. "You are too lovely to be covered up." 

The prince turned away from Laurent for a moment, though Damen still had hold of Laurent's hand, so he was not able to slip away and attend to his duties. Damen tugged on Laurent's fingers and drew him over toward the bed. 

The bed was different than both the ones Laurent had grown up with in Arles and the piles of silken pillows and blankets that the slaves had relaxed on in the training gardens. In Arles, bed frames for the rich were fashioned of wood, and the frame supported a mattress as well as had posters for the the bedclothes. The canopy over the bed and the curtains that closed it off from the rest of the room kept the bed's occupant warm when the weather was chill. 

In the slave gardens the weather did not have the same cold bite as winters in Arles. In the heat of the summer, the larger question was how to open oneself to the cool breeze that came in from the water. 

The bed in Damen's chamber had a stone frame, and the feet were carved to look like the paws of an animal. The stone frame supported the bedding. The bed was draped with linen appropriate to the prince's station -- fine cotton sheets, a woven blanket for warmth, silks draped artistically across the pillows. There were no posters or bed curtains to shield what happened on the bed from the rest of the room. 

The oil lamp rested on a small wooden table near to the bed, far enough away to keep the bedding from catching fire if the lamp threw a spark or tipped over, but not so far that it was inconvenient to put out. 

Damen brushed a strand of Laurent's hair away from his face, tucking it behind his ear. He smoothed his thumb along Laurent's cheekbone, and then looked at it. There was a faint smear of pink on the pad of his thumb where Laurent had missed removing some of the rouge. Laurent felt within himself a romantic sense, and he knew, though he could not have said how he knew it, that the prince was going to try to kiss him. 

Laurent tried to retake control of the situation. He should be serving the prince. He needed to take the prince's clothes and note where he tucked away the weapon. Perhaps he should offer Damen a drink. 

"Would--" he began, but he was interrupted by the intensity with which Damen was inspecting his face. 

"Is there someone else?" 

"What?" said Laurent. 

"Did you wish to be presented to someone else? Were you in training for another?" 

Laurent realized he was staring at the prince and lowered his eyes deliberately. "I don't know what you mean." 

"You don't want to be here," said Damen. 

"Of course I do," said Laurent, looking up again. Damen was frowning and there was a crease across the center of his forehead. 

"You're different than the others." 

"I'm not," Laurent said, then almost bit his tongue. This was not how he had intended for the evening to progress. _I am going to kill Damianos the Prince Killer,_ he told himself,, though he found it hard to connect the abstract resolution in his head with the man who actually stood in front of him. “You’re wrong. I’m not different than any of the others.” 

“None of the others would have said that.” 

The moment drew out between them. Laurent could feel the beat of his own heart too fast inside his chest. He thought for a moment of grabbing the dagger at Damen’s waist and just stabbing the prince now, forgoing the advantage of catching him asleep or unawares. 

“You can go,” Damen said. 

“What?” said Laurent. 

“I’m not going to force you,” said Damen. 

Laurent had envisioned the evening he was presented to the prince more than a hundred times. He had never envisioned this. Damen interrupted all of his plans. 

The prince turned away from him, as though turning his back to Laurent were nothing. Laurent turned on his heel, and left. 


	4. Chapter 4

Laurent was assigned his own small space within the slave quarters. Many of the slaves had to share, either with a roommate or with a group in one of the barracks-like rooms lined with beds. But he wore the future king's pin, which was accompanied by privileges even though he was new, and therefore Laurent had his own room. 

The room had a pallet strewn with silks for him to sleep -- when he wasn't serving -- and enough space for him to pace the length of the pallet beside it, and a small chest for his things. There wasn't space for anything else even if he had any other possessions or purposes for them. A small window high above the bed lit the room, high enough on the wall that he was not able to look out, but neither, he supposed, could anyone from the outside look in.

Laurent exercised his privilege of privacy and closed the door behind himself, sitting down on his pallet. He took even breaths in and out.

Adrastus came in to the room without knocking. "What happened?" the slave master said, brusquely. 

"Damianos-exalted dismissed me."

"Why?" said Adrastus. "What happened to your makeup?"

"Paint does not please the prince," said Laurent. It was easier to keep his eyes on the floor as Adrastus questioned him than it had been when he had stood in front of the prince.

"Did he see your scar?" said Adrastus. 

"No."

Adrastus regarded Laurent for a long moment from the doorway. A sliver of moonlight came in through the window above Laurent's bed and left a shadow on the wall in the shape of Laurent's head.

"The prince is going to tell me if he is displeased," said Adrastus, sharply. "It will be better for you if you tell me what happened now than make me wait for his account."

Laurent looked at his shadow on the wall, the profile of his face outlined in the darkness. "The prince did not say he was displeased."

Adrastus gestured toward Laurent, moving his hand up and down and indicating Laurent sitting on the pallet. "You are here," he said. "Why is your hair not messed by tossing it on the pillow? Why are the pins still draping your clothes? Your skin is not reddened by the stubble the prince wears at the end of the day, and you have no love bites or marks of pleasure. How can the prince not be displeased?"

Laurent did not answer. 

Adrastus left the room after a long moment of silence. The door snicked shut behind him with a final sounding noise.

Laurent had not anticipated sleeping that night -- he had thought he would be occupied with locating a weapon and taking his revenge -- but he ended up sleeping soundly in his room. In the morning, he awoke and lay on his pallet without getting up.

He dawdled in his room for half of an hour, wondering when Adrastus would have an opportunity to speak with the prince and what the likely outcome of that discussion was. Would they strip him of his pin immediately? Send him back to the prince’s rooms again for a second attempt? If he were not given a second chance, would he be sent away or given to someone else in the palace at Ios? Being sent away might mean the end of any chance to take his revenge. 

Laurent’s inclination to laze in his room on the pallet warred with his hunger. He abandoned the room and walked to the slave’s dining room, holding his head high and making his expression such that he did not invite discussion from any of the others.

The summons came as he was finishing his last bite of food. The message was carried to him by one of the prince’s other favorites, a blonde and rounded woman named Lykaios. 

“Damianos-exalted wishes for you to serve him in the garden,” she told Laurent.

Laurent knew from reputation that the prince was not a man of leisure. Damen thought of himself like a soldier and held himself to the same training regimen as any of the soldiers. It was unusual for him to spend a morning relaxing in the garden, but he seemed relaxed when Laurent approached carrying a tray of fruit slices.

The prince nodded a greeting and Laurent settled himself and the tray on the grass next to Damen.

“Good morning,” said Damen.

“Your highness,” Laurent said. He could feel Damen’s gaze warm upon his skin like the sun’s rays in summer. If he wanted an opportunity for revenge -- if he wanted to be alone with the prince again -- he had to stop forgetting himself and make an effort.

“Would your highness like some fruit?” Laurent asked.

“Yes.”

Laurent stared down at the fruit tray. He pictured the coquettish way in which Adrastus would wish him to tease the prince’s lips with a slice of peach, and the forced motion that he actually used was very unlike how he was trained.

Damen was watching Laurent closely with an expression that indicated he could read Laurent’s internal conflict and found it slightly amusing.

And things proceeded in that vein for the next few days. 

Adrastus watched Laurent with a cautious look in his eye, and frowned when he saw Laurent retreat alone to his tiny room at night. The prince summoned Laurent frequently enough to attend him in various ways to banish the notion that he was displeased, but he did not call for Laurent at night. Laurent fed him fruit in the garden, read to him one evening before the prince dismissed him, served him at breakfast one morning, and was summoned to assist the prince in the bath before Adrastus intervened and sent someone else. 

Kallias watched Lykaios depart to tend Damianos in the bath and gave Laurent a smug look. “Hard to serve in the bath without the prince seeing your scars,” he observed.

Laurent shrugged, looking unconcerned. He felt unconcerned. He wanted to be alone with the prince, but not in the baths, when the prince would be awake and flirtatious and expect Laurent to wash him. He wanted to be alone with the prince when he was asleep, which would present Laurent the best opportunity to kill him. Or possibly, Laurent had revised his opinion after observing Damen practicing with his men the day before, his only opportunity to kill him. He had no doubt that without the advantage of surprise he was not going to be able to be successful. 

Kallias was summoned off to tend Kastor a moment later.


End file.
